This paper examines the question of language loyalty in the United States and explores the implications that the institutional teaching of modern languages may have for ethnic language maintenance. The education of United States ethnics has always resulted in the loss of the ethnic tongue as a resource. However, although negative attitudes toward…

This study explores two linguistically alternative options--English and Japanese--available to children from bilingual homes, some of which are immigrant families. To measure each child's bilingual verbal ability, the Bilingual Verbal Ability Tests (BVAT) were administered. Interviews with bilingual children's mothers were conducted. The results…

This guide accompanies a videotape that can be used as a tool to help prepare refugees for their life in the United States. The trainers who use this guide can help refugees to process the information that is presented in the video and relate it to their own lives. The activities suggested in the guide focus on the content of the video as well as…

This study was conducted at a public school with a population of over 900 students. Among the main language groups represented were Punjabi, Hindi, Tamil, Estonian, Serbian, Arabic as well as 23 other language groups. The author monitored over 75 students, in grades 1, 2 and 4. She was interested in exploring what strategies best promoted…

This study examined and compared the rhetorical structure of argumentative texts written by three groups of university students: 1) twenty Indonesian texts written by Indonesian native speakers (I.I.); 2) ten English texts written by Indonesian native speakers (I.E.); 3) ten English texts written by English native speakers (A.E.). Following the…

Presents evidence contradicting previous findings regarding the relative academic superiority of recent Mexican immigrants over native-born Mexican Americans. Discusses the problem of the relative achievement levels of the two groups in the context of three possible explanations: socio-economic differences; teacher expectancy effect; and native…

A study investigated: (1) the communication strategies (CSs) used by Turkish learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) when interacting with native English speakers, and (2) the influence of gender on use of CSs when communication difficulties occur because of limited English proficiency. Subjects were ten native Turkish-speaking ESL learners…

A study compared the perceptions of two experts from different cultural backgrounds concerning salience of a variety of errors typical of the English written by Hong Kong secondary and college students. A book on English error types written by a Hong-Kong born, fluent Chinese-English bilingual linguist was analyzed for its emphases, and a list of…

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was administered to 26 hearing impaired college students, in order to test the assumption that the English-language deficiencies of hearing impaired students are similar to those of foreign students. The students were attending Gallaudet College's School of Preparatory Studies and were identified…

The State of Louisiana has instituted a number of educational programs to meet the needs of a large French- and Spanish-speaking population. For the French-speaking population, the program is designed to improve and expand the teaching of French at all educational levels and to preserve and protect the French cultural heritage. Contact and…

A study investigated to what extent adult native speakers of Mandarin Chinese learning English as a second language could pronounce the five front vowels of American English, how difficult this was, and which vowels were most difficult. Subjects were 16 Chinese university students and spouses and 16 American students. All subjects were recorded…

In a study of developmental reading behaviors, errors of 75 Spanish-English bilingual students (grades 2-9) on the McLeod GAP Comprehension Test were categorized in an attempt to ascertain a pattern of language difficulties. Contrary to previous research, bilingual readers minimally used native language cues in reading second language materials.…

A study investigated whether adult learners of a second language would judge grammaticality differently in visual and aural judgment tasks. Four groups were tested: English first-language, French first-language, English second-language, and French second-language. Results indicate judgments were slower and less accurate in the aural condition,…

Two types of contextualized input in prosody training were investigated for 28 advanced L2 speakers of English (L1 Chinese). Their oral presentations provided training materials. Native-speakers (NSs) of English provided global prosody ratings, and participants completed questionnaires on perceived training effectiveness. Two groups received…

Papers on linguistics and language teaching in this volume are the following: "Language in Education: Hard Choices for Hong Kong" (Jo Lewkowicz); "EL2--Medium Education in a Largely Monolingual Society: The Case of Hong Kong" (Nigel Bruce); "A Programme for Semantics" (Laurence Goldstein); "Semantics and Its…